The present invention relates to a recording apparatus for a recording medium which records a plurality of image data, and to a recording method.
A format called DVD-Video is known as a format for recording moving images in a DVD disc. According to DVD-Video, a lead-in, a file system (FS), Video Manager Information (VMGI), a Video Object Set for Video Manager Menu (VMGM_VOBS), Video Title Sets (VTS), and a lead-out are recorded in this order from the top. Of these, VMGI is playback control information for a whole DVD disc, and VMGM_VOBS is the basis of a menu screen.
VMGI, VMGM-VOBS and lead-out are generated when a recording DVD disc such as DVD-R/RW and DVD+R/RW is finalized. A finalizing process will be described with reference to FIGS. 9A to 9E. As shown in FIG. 9A, a lead-in, a file system and a plurality of VTSs are recorded in a DVD disc not yet finalized.
As shown in FIG. 9B, in a finalizing process for a DVD disc, VMGI and VMGM-VOBS are generated and recorded in the DVD disc. When the VMGM_VOBS is generated, first, a picture representative of the contents of each VTS is selected from the plurality of VTSs. The representative pictures are resized to form still image thumbnails. This operation is repeated as many times as the number of scenes to form a menu screen. The menu screen of bit map data is encoded again into a video stream. A packetized video stream is herein called a video pack. In the finalizing process, a menu screen with still image thumbnails attached thereto is formed. Arrangement of a menu screen is determined beforehand. In an example shown in FIG. 10, six still image thumbnails are disposed in two rows in a vertical direction and in three columns in a horizontal direction, and two command buttons are provided under the still image thumbnails. Arrows indicating right and left as viewed in FIG. 10 are displayed on the command buttons. When the left arrow is selected, the menu screen is changed to a menu screen on a previous page, and when the right arrow is selected, the menu screen is changed to a menu screen on a following page (for example, refer to Japanese Patent Application Publication (KOKAI) No. 2003-331526).
If data is to be written additionally in a DVD disc finalized once, a process called an unfinalizing process is executed. As shown in FIG. 9C, the lead-out, VMGI and VMGM_VOBS are erased from an unfinalized DVD disc. If a DVD disc is unfinalized, data can be written additionally. VTS#n+1 is written additionally in the DVD disc as shown in FIG. 9D.
In a case of refinalizing an unfinalized DVD disc, VMGI and VMGM_VOBS are generated again. As shown in FIG. 9E, the generated VMGI and VMGM_VOBS, and a lead-out are recorded in the DVD disc to complete the finalizing process.
As described above, still image thumbnails of VMGM_VOBS are formed by decoding scenes read from a DVD disc, selecting pictures representative of the scenes, and resizing the selected representative pictures. A video pack is formed by repeating generation of still image thumbnails the number of scenes, and encoding again menu screens, bit map data, into a video stream. Since an amount of calculation in a VMGM_VOBS generating process is large, a process time tends to be long. VMGM_VOBS generated at a previous finalizing process and VMGM_VOBS to be generated for refinalizing have a large amount of duplicated data. Therefore, if the whole amount of data is to be generated, there is a wasteful amount of calculation.